• ALICE IN WONDERLAND (PG) In Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll’s young heroine is now an adult. This nearing-20 Alice seeks to escape an arranged engagement to the odious son of her late father’s business partner by again falling into a hole while chasing a tardy white rabbit. Sadly, this Alice has, like the Hatter astutely announces, lost its muchness. This return trip feels less like Tim Burton’s adventures in Wonderland than a Disney approximation of the auteur’s vision.
• ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS: THE SQUEAKQUEL (PG) More Alvin, Simon and Theodore as the Chipmunks go back to school and face off against the lovely Chipettes—Brittany, Eleanor and Jeannette. The famous voices of Justin Long, Jesse McCartney, Anna Faris, Christina Applegate and Amy Poehler are sped up until they are indistinguishable, which is more than you can say for Jason Lee, Zachary Levi (“Chuck”) and David Cross.
• AVATAR (PG-13) On a remote planet, a paraplegic marine, Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), is promised the use of his legs if he helps the Corporation relocate a race of blue warriors, the Na’vi, whose home is located atop the planet’s richest supply of unobtanium. Jake takes control of a Na’vi/ human hybrid, infiltrating the aliens to learn their ways, but falls in love with them, particularly the chief’s daughter, Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), instead. Now Sully must lead the Na’vi against the space marines led by General Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), a scarred hulk of a military man.
• THE BLIND SIDE (PG-13) A rich white couple, Leigh Anne and Sean Touhy (Sandra Bullock and likable, easygoing Tim McGraw), take in Big Mike, an African-American giant given up on by most of Memphis. They turn his life around; he eventually earns a scholarship to Ole Miss. He doesn’t really do anything to change their lives, although the movie insists that he does.
• THE BOUNTY HUNTER (PG-13) Milo Boyd (Gerard Butler), the titular bounty hunter, discovers his latest quarry is his ex-wife, Nicole Hurly (Jennifer Aniston), a reporter who knows too much. Now the constantly arguing duo must run for their lives. Wow, this high-concept action comedy reeks of the 1980s. Hitch director Andy Tennant did not show a talent for these sorts of flicks with 2008’s Fool’s Gold. With the usually entertaining Christine Baranski and Jason Sudeikis (“Saturday Night Live”).
• BROOKLYN’S FINEST (R) How many cop clichés does it take to complete this paint-by-numbers crime drama from Training Day director Antoine Fuqua? One cop, Eddie (a miscast Richard Gere), is days away from a Connecticut retirement he wishes to share with his favorite, gold-hearted hooker; a narcotics officer, Sal (Ethan Hawke), plots to steal drug money to move his still-expanding family out of their mold-infested house; and an undercover officer going by the name Tango (Don Cheadle) has infiltrated a local drug outfit led by the guy who saved his life in prison (Wesley Snipes). Yet a compelling drama emerges out of this clichéd haze. After the stultifying first 90 minutes, I was surprisingly sucked in by the climactic final 40, thanks to the compelling leads (even the out of place Gere) and Fuqua’s tight pacing and smart parallel editing.
• BURMA VJ (NR) 2008. An Academy Award nominee for Best Documentary Feature, Burma VJ uses smuggled footage to document the 2007 Burmese civil disobedience of several thousand monks. Video journalists risked their lives to deliver these images of peaceful protests of a brutal military regime. Director Anders Østergaard’s film won over 40 international awards including the Robert and the Bodil for Best Documentary and was a Grand Jury Prize nominee at the Sundance Film Festival. Part of the Amnesty International Human Rights Film Festival.
• COP OUT (R) The Master of Smutty Fun, writer-director Kevin Smith, has assembled a buddy cop movie that would have been a minor hit in the late '80s and spawned an unnecessary sequel that would have gone virtually ignored. Having released Cop Out, starring Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan as partners on the trail of a stolen baseball card, in 2010, the action comedy plays the genre too straight to be funny and too silly to be taken seriously. Lacking an intelligent, exciting or funny script, Cop Out merely serves to remind us all why the buddy cop movie no longer rules the action roost.
• THE CRAZIES (R) This remake of George A. Romero’s quasi-remake of/prequel to his own Night of the Living Dead stars Timothy Olyphant (see him soon on FX’s new show, “Justified”) as a local lawman who must save his tiny Iowa town after a contaminated water supply turns everybody loony. Costar Radha Mitchell has become quite the genre vet; The Crazies is her fourth scary movie (Pitch Black, Silent Hill and Rogue). Parts of this flick were filmed in Cordele, Fort Valley, Macon, Montezuma and Perry, GA.
• CRAZY HEART (R) A sweet, slow-cooked character study, Crazy Heart sings a familiar Country & Western song—divorce, alcoholism, pickup trucks—that is not quite as memorable as its troubled, charming main character and Jeff Bridges’ performance.
• CREATION (PG-13) English naturalist Charles Darwin (Paul Bettany) struggles to reconcile his revolutionary evolutionary theories with his religious wife (Bettany’s real-life spouse, Oscar winner Jennifer Connelly), whose faith is in direct contradiction to his findings. British director Jon Amiel won a BAFTA TV award for the acclaimed BBC miniseries “The Singing Detective,” but his movie career hasn’t been as sharp (Copycat? Entrapment? The Core?!). With Jeremy Northam (“The Tudors”’s Sir Thomas More) and Toby Jones (the other Capote).
• DEAR JOHN (PG-13) More Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook) and more Lasse Hallstrom (Chocolat) could mean saccharine overload with this tearjerker about a soldier, John Tyree (Channing Tatum), who falls in love with a gal, Savannah Lynn Curtis (the Amanda Seyfried), while home on leave. But the terrorist attacks of 9/11 cause him to reenlist, an act that puts long-distance strain on their relationship. Thank goodness for Richard Jenkins, whose reassuring presence as John’s distant dad just might be enough to make this drivel tolerable.
• DIARY OF A WIMPY KID (PG) This potential new family franchise, based on the series of novels Jeff Kinney (Wimpy Kid actually started as a web-comic in 2004), stars Zachary Gordon as Greg Heffley. Forced to keep a diary by his mother (Rachael Harris), Greg recounts the daily embarrassments of being in seventh grade. Director Thor Freudenthal figured out how to please the kiddies with his last flick, Hotel for Dogs. I just hope Diary of a Wimpy Kid is better; it can’t be much worse. With Steve Zahn.
• AN EDUCATION (PG-13) Intelligent and mature for her 16 years, Jenny Miller (Academy Award nominee Mulligan) dreams of little more than escaping her tiny life in a London suburb with her bourgeois parents (Alfred Molina and Cara Seymour). With her father pushing her toward Oxford, Jenny spends her days studying classic works of Brit lit and translating Latin in preparation for her A-levels. But then she meets David Goldman (Peter Sarsgaard), an exciting older man with a sports car and a seemingly endless disposable income. David charms the entire Miller family right up until the impending moment that his dream life proves too good to be true.
• THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO (NR) As popular as late author Stieg Larsson’s novel has proven, I am surprised Hollywood isn’t forgoing releasing the Swedish blockbuster adaptation in favor of their own English language remake, which Oscar winner Steven Zaillian is supposed to be currently scripting. Journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nykvist) and computer hacker Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) investigation of a young woman’s disappearance leads to a decades-old murder and a family’s dark history. Winner of the Guldbagge for Best Film.
• GREEN ZONE (R) See Movie Pick.
• THE LAST STATION (R) This historical drama depicts the struggle of Russian author Leo Tolstoy (first-time Academy Award nominee Christopher Plummer) to balance fame with his desire to live a life devoid of material possessions. Director Michael Hoffman’s filmography (including Soapdish and One Fine Day) does not quite excite. The film could be a big winner at the Independent Spirit Awards where it is nominated for five prizes including Best Feature, Best Director and Best Screenplay. With James McAvoy, Best Supporting Actress Oscar nominee Helen Mirren and Paul Giamatti.
• MOTHER (R) Filmmaker Bong Joon-ho hit it big a couple of years back with the monster movie The Host. He returns with this crime drama about a mother attempting to clear the name of her mentally handicapped son after he is accused of raping and murdering a young woman. With good reviews and the awards it has already nabbed, Mother is one to watch. Granted, you can always catch the inevitable Hollywood remake starring Angelina Jolie or Ashley Judd (in other words, your typical sexy matron). Nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Foreign Film.
• OLD DOGS (PG) A spiritual followup to Wild Hogs, Old Dogs shares star John Travolta, director Walt Becker (Van Wilder), and old-man hijinks. Ben (Robin Williams) is a successful businessman who discovers he fathered twins. Naturally, he enlists his bachelor pal (Travolta) when asked to care for the kids for an extended period of time. Costar Seth Green looks to be funny. With Kelly Preston, Lori Loughlin, Matt Dillon and the late Bernie Mac in his final role.
• OUR FAMILY WEDDING (PG-13) As the nuptials of Lucia Ramirez (America Ferrera, “Ugly Betty”) and Marcus Boyd (Lance Gross, “Tyler Perry’s House of Payne”) approach, the young couple must deal with the pressures from their families, especially their feuding fathers, Bradford (Forest Whitaker) and Miguel (Carlos Mencia). Fox Searchlight Pictures’ intent to appeal to a more diverse audience seems to vie for Tyler Perry’s immense fanbase. Director Rick Famuyiwa previously helmed Brown Sugar and The Wood. With Regina King, Taye Diggs and Fred Armisen.
• PERCY JACKSON & THE OLYMPIANS: THE LIGHTNING THIEF (PG) Troubled teen Percy Jackson (Logan Lerman) discovers he is a demigod, the son of Greek god Poseidon (Kevin McKidd), and must recover his Uncle Zeus’ (Sean Bean) master bolt before an Olympian civil war rocks the entire world. Accompanied by protective satyr Grover (Brandon T. Jackson) and Annabeth (Alexandra Daddario), the daughter of Athena, Percy crisscrosses the country for silly reasons only a screenwriter would devise.
• REMEMBER ME (PG-13) This dramatic romance is Robert Pattinson’s cinematic excursion from The Twilight Saga. Two young lovers, Tyler (RPattz) and Ally (Emilie de Ravin, “Lost”), find each other in the wake of personal tragedy. Tyler’s brother just committed suicide, and Ally witnessed her mother’s murder. Director Allen Coulter is a TV vet (lots of HBO and a little FX) who directed the feature Hollywoodland. The seasoned cast includes Pierce Brosnan, Chris Cooper, Martha Plimpton and Lena Olin.
• REMEMBER THE TITANS (PG) 2000. Directed by Boaz Yakin (Fresh, A Price Above Rubies), this sports-drama is a portrait of Alexandria, VA—a football-crazed town torn by the mandatory integration of the city's formerly segregated high schools. Set in 1971, things get messy when the school board appoints an African American, Herman Boone (Denzel Washington), to replace the beloved Bill Yoast (Will Patton) as head coach of the T.C. Williams Titans. Washington and Patton give commanding performances in what’s otherwise an inspiring, but naïve, fairy tale.
• REPO MEN (R) Did you see Repo! The Genetic Opera? You didn’t? Well, here’s your second chance to essentially see the same story, minus the songs and plus Jude Law. In a future where artificial organs are plentiful, repo men are charged with repossessing organs from persons who fail to pay off their new liver, lungs or heart. But when repo man Remy (Law) defaults on his own artificial heart, he must go on the run to keep it. With Forest Whitaker, Liev Schreiber, Alica Braga and Carice van Houten.
• THE ROOM (R) The Room might be the "Mona Lisa" of bad movies; its greatness lies in its mysterious smile, which a laughing Tommy Wiseau, the baffling "auteur," trots out at the oddest moments. The Room will leave you with so many questions that don’t need answering. Did Johnny and Lisa get married? What about Claudette’s cancer? Why do they want to throw the football so much? Why am I in a densely populated theater at one in the morning watching this strange, hysterical man vomit drama on the big screen?
• THE RUNAWAYS (R) Twilight’s Kristen Stewart moonlights as Joan Jett, while her New Moon pal, Dakota Fanning, plays Cherie Currie in this musical biopic of the groundbreaking 1975 band, The Runaways. Also joining the band are Scout Taylor-Compton (Rob Zombie’s Halloween) as Lita Ford and Stella Maeve (Brooklyn’s Finest) as band cofounder Sandy West. The Runaways is the feature debut of music video director Floria Sigismondi. I can’t help but be a little excited. With Alia Shawkat (“Arrested Development”) and Tatum O’Neal.
• SECOND SKIN (NR) 2008. Director Juan Carlos Pineiro-Escoriaza’s film looks at three sets of computer gamers, whose lives have been revolutionized by the availability of online virtual living offered by Massively Multiplayer Online games (MMOs). The consequences of playing these highly addictive games, the most famous of which is World of Warcraft, are far-reaching. Two of the film’s subjects actually find love in the fictional world of Everquest II. Part of the ACC Library’s iFilms series.
• SHERLOCK HOLMES (PG-13) Holmes (the never disappointing Robert Downey Jr.) and Dr. Watson (a game Jude Law) must stop evil Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong) from taking over the world through some sinister, supernatural means. A criminal love interest (Rachel McAdams) exists for the great private dick, but the real affection is the bromantic bond between Holmes and Watson. Sparks fly between Downey and Law; they make a great couple. Watching a Guy Ritchie movie (he of the laddish gangster Brit-flicks Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch) is like sitting for someone else’s amusing, exhausting three-to-seven-year-old. You’re pleasantly worn out from all the running and jumping, yet you’re ready for some peace and quiet when the kid goes home. The same goes for Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes.
• SHE’S OUT OF MY LEAGUE (R) See Movie Pick.
• SHUTTER ISLAND (R) In 1954, U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his new partner, Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo), are summoned to a remote island in Boston Harbor that houses some of the nation’s most dangerous, unstable prisoners, or patients, as head psychiatrist, Dr. Cawley (Ben Kingsley), prefers. A patient, Rachel Solando (Emily Mortimer), has mysteriously escaped, and the marshals have been tasked with finding her and returning her, a job at which Teddy excels. However, Teddy and Chuck soon realize something is amiss on Shutter Island.
• SOUNDTRACK FOR A REVOLUTION (NR) 2009. Filmmakers Bill Guttentag and Dan Sturman tell the familiar historical story of the American Civil Rights Movement through the powerful soundtrack it generated. Witness these freedom songs reinterpreted by modern artists Wyclef Jean, John Legend, Joss Stone and The Roots. Winner of Most Popular Film at the Vancouver International Film Festival, a Gold Plaque for Directing at the Chicago International Film Festival and the Audience Award at the Morelia International Film Festival. Part of the Amnesty International Human Rights Film Festival.
• THE STONING OF SORAYA M. (R) 2008. Set in 1986 Iran, this timely independent drama stars the always excellent Shohreh Aghdashloo (an Academy Award nominee for House of Sand and Fog) as Zahra, a brave woman with a dangerous story to tell, and Jim “Jesus” Caviezel as Sahebjam, the man to whom she tells it. Based on the international bestseller by Freidoune Sahebjam, The Stoning of Soraya M. was the runner-up for the People’s Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival. Part of the Amnesty International Human Rights Film Festival.
• THE TWILIGHT SAGA: NEW MOON (PG-13) All Twilight hating aside, the second cinematic installment of the four-part series bests the first film, even with less of Robert Pattinson’s Edward—a loss tempered by the promotion of the mostly shirtless Taylor Lautner. Twilight true believers will have no trouble loving the follow-up as much, if not more than, its predecessor. Those not inducted into the ever-expanding cult will wonder what all the fuss is about.
• UP IN THE AIR (R) With its topicality, Up in the Air is definitely the movie of right now. Its tastefully shot exit interviews might hit too close to home for some recently downsized viewers; and pulling for the guy paid six figures to professionally sack people might be too much to swallow. Yet Reitman and his co-scripter Sheldon Turner rarely dwell on the ramifications of Ryan’s dirty job. Most of the people he fires may not be fiscally better off, but they have families—wives, children, a home—to go home to. Up in the Air is one of those rarest of cinematic breeds; flawless is not a term I use frivolously.
• WHO DOES SHE THINK SHE IS? (NR) 2008. Filmmaker Pamela Tanner Boll (co-executive producer of the Academy Award winning Born Into Brothels) and co-director Nancy Kennedy profile five female artists of varying race, creed and artistic medium who refused to choose when society offered the two options of motherhood and creativity. Winner of Best Documentary at the Savannah Film Festival and the Baltimore Women’s Film Festival. Sponsored by the Georgia Museum of Art as part of their celebration of Women’s History Month. Shows Wednesday, 3/24 (Lamar Dodd School of Art).
• THE WOLFMAN (R) A man, Lawrence Talbot (Benicio Del Toro), attempting to escape his domineering father’s shadow, is drawn back into his orbit after the mysterious, violent death of his brother. Lawrence discovers his father, Sir John Talbot (Anthony Hopkins), is keeping a dark, furry secret that unleashes monthly mayhem upon the small English country village of Blackmoor. After a soporific first act, Lawrence is bitten by the beast and becomes the newest victim of the curse, unleashing a tremendously exciting second act, highlighted by a Victorian-era sanitarium and a moonlit rampage through London’s streets. Give The Wolfman a good half hour to get going; once the moon is full, the beast is satisfyingly unleashed.

Drew Wheeler